In answer to Jeri's plea, I finally received the digest in which Arlene's and Susan's reports arrived. Arlene is featured first, so Susan was second to get her report in, and finally having some time after dealing with laundry and putting away all my lace goodies, I am sending my report.
I want to thank Arlene for all she did for the Arachne lunch. She arranged for the tables to be put together and had the Arachne name on stands on each group of tables. She put out the photocopies of the book from the Arizona site, each in a plastic file holder so they did not get spoilt by the food we placed on top. Her raffle was very well organized and I say this, not because my name was drawn early in the proceedings, but everyone went home with a prize. Liz arrived just as we were packing up but she was able to go home with something as well. It was great to see so many Arachne members at the lunch. I took the morning Lier class and worked on it during the afternoon in my room. The maid, who was from Haiti, liked to watch me work and although it was difficult to understand her, she was familia with tambour work. One question I have, does anyone know what type of starch should be used to stiffen a piece that is going to be a pendant, and is there something suitable in the US? I usually use strong hold perfume free hair spray but I don't think that will be firm enough. Greet mentioned "dab" or "dip" but I haven't found anything by those names in a search online. None of the vendors had starch to my knowledge. I enjoyed the whole week and I think we were overwhelmed with goodies at the meals. Those items that I will not keep will be passed on to my guild members. The meals were all good and the entertainment at the banquet was very lively. Being old, I was able to sing along with the band as I remember many of the songs from when I was a girl from radio. I was genuinely surprised to receive the first prize for the original design for my small, simple needlelace necklace. There were many entries in the competitions this year and I breathed a sigh of relief when the tatted necklace I had admired all week turned out to win the Doris Southward award for professional lacemakers. I thought that would win but had not noticed which category it was in. My room mate and I did our own tour on Wednesday to downtown Philadelphia. We caught the bus outside the hotel and the drivers in both directions allowed us to ride free as we are seniors even though we did not have a PA pass. We saw the Liberty Bell close up, the house where the Declaration of Independence was drafted by Thomas Jefferson and the house where Betsy Ross sewed the flag, and a number of other sights. We ate lunch at Reading Market which was a great place for people watching. Although it was hot, we walked in the shade of the tall buildings and all the places we visited were air conditioned, so we survived and had a good day. Next year convention will be in San Antonio, Texas the last week of July. The fan style invitation quotes it will be "hotter than a jalapeño". The following year, 2019, will be in Walla Walla, Washington. That is just north of the Oregon border in the eastern part of Washington state. Should be an interesting journey getting there. Janice Blair Murrieta, CA, jblace.com - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
